


Blue Monday

by BenSoloUnmasked



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: 80's Music, 90's Music, Angst, Declarations Of Love, Feelings Realization, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Pining, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Science Boyfriends, don't tell me it isn't canon that Newt blasted British rock in the Shatterdome okay, seriously though British rock music of the 80's and 90's is a plot device
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 00:52:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15108323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BenSoloUnmasked/pseuds/BenSoloUnmasked
Summary: Hermann liked to tell people that Newt had good days and bad days. He liked to tell people this because it was easier than the truth. The truth - that Newt had bad days and worse days - was harder to say and even harder to swallow. If nobody else knew the truth, maybe he could convince himself of the lie, even if only for a moment.---Nobody knows what to do with Newton Geiszler. The Precursors won't budge and everyone has tried everything - that is, everyone but Hermann Gottlieb. Newt's trying his best to come back but he can't do it alone, unless Hermann accepts that the feelings he's been trying so hard to hide might be be better out in the open.





	Blue Monday

**Author's Note:**

> I know that Newmann fix-it fics are old news now that Uprising has been out for a few months but I couldn't help myself. Gotta give these good science boys the angsty romance they deserve.

It had been back in the lab, either very late at night or early in the morning, where Dr. Hermann Gottlieb had first felt something pleasant and unfamiliar twist in the pit of his stomach. Dr. Newton Geiszler had been working on one of his more ghastly projects, Kaiju dissection of some sort, organs slopping over the edges of tables and splattering to the floor. Hermann had opened his mouth, ready to say something as swathes of intestines began to unwind and snake their way over to his side of the room, but before he could make a sound Newt had looked up at him with a sheepish smile.

‘I know, I know, don’t say it,’ Newt had said, throwing his hands up and kicking everything that had fallen back towards his lab table. ‘ _My_ stuff on _my_ side, I know. You keep your equations over there, I’ll keep the organs over here. I know.’

Newt’s manic babbling aside, it was a gesture. The two knew each other, knew what the other would do and say in common situations, and as much as they got on each other’s nerves their familiarity had bred a degree of compassion.

Hermann had shut his mouth and nodded thoughtfully.

Newt’s eyes flickered over to his work again for a moment, only a moment, before settling back on Herman. A pause. ’What?’ Newt asked with a hesitant curve to his lips.

‘Hmm?’

Music blared in the background, Newt’s choice as always, an old song with a loud beat that usually grated Hermann’s last nerve - _tell me, how do I feel, tell me now, how should I feel_ \- but Hermann could barely hear it over the hammering in his chest.

‘Hermann, dude, you’re staring.’

‘Oh!’ Hermann exclaimed with a start, blinking and straightening up stiffly, his mind snapping back to its usual sharp focus. ‘My apologies, Newton. I was a million miles away.’

Newt had laughed. ‘Whatever, man. Just get back down to Earth, we need you here if we’re going to close that breach and stop these things.’ He jerked a thumb at the Kaiju remains and went back to his work with a smile. That blasted smile… if Hermann had already been coming to a realisation, then that had cemented it.

He had feelings for one Dr. Newton Geiszler, and that wasn’t exactly something he had been expecting to have to comprehend.

His chest tightened, his head spun, and his soul lightened with the shock of it. Who’d have guessed that the rational scientist had a soul after all? He’d never thought much about it before. Everything was numbers, calculations, critical thought. This was… new. This was untraversed terrain.

He and Newt stayed close, as their work necessitated, and he waited for his moment. He waited, the words on the tip of his tongue, bursting out of his chest, for days, months, years. The war ended, lives went on, their work continued. The words were swallowed, contained. Hermann eventually forced himself to stop the self-torture and pretend he felt nothing, pretend there was nothing to be said; it was easier to deny his feelings than live every day with them so close to his sleeve.

After all, what right did the recluse have to capture the heart of the reckless?

If Newt had noticed, perceived any changes, then he certainly didn’t make it known. The pair continued as they always had, in mismatched chaotic harmony; bickering and laughing and trying to connect mathematics and biology into something that transcended the limits of science. Hermann knew that as long as Newt was around, things made sense. He had never really been one for sentimentality, but over time his emotions had softened his rigid, analytical mind and he had grown comfortable in the life the two of them led - coworkers turned comrades turned confidants.

Hermann’s single biggest fear after the war had been letting Newt slip away, but slip away he had. The Precursors that had taken residence in Newt’s head had made sure of that.

It was happening even then, he realised now: the snappy asides, the renewed interest in Kaiju drifting, the insistence that their work was more important than ever… if he’d known what to look for, Hermann rationalised, it would have been plain to see. Maybe he could have intervened.

Maybe the man waiting on the other side of the guarded steel door before him wouldn’t be such a faint shadow of himself.

Hermann liked to tell people that Newt had good days and bad days. He liked to tell people this because it was easier than the truth. The truth - that Newt had bad days and worse days - was harder to say and even harder to swallow. If nobody else knew the truth, maybe he could convince himself of the lie, even if only for a moment.

But then, plenty of people knew the truth. Jake Pentecost knew, the guards knew, the medics called in when Newt somehow found a way to make himself bleed even with all his limbs restrained… they certainly knew. His body was not his own, his voice familiar but edged by shadow. Many had said that to speak with the formerly warm and flippant scientist was now like welcoming fear into their hearts.

Really, that was only one of many reasons why Hermann had stood on the other side of the one-way mirror for two weeks before finally finding the courage to enter.

He had watched others come and go, Jake reminding him daily that he was welcome to follow. Nobody knew Newt better, and all were agreed that it was well worth a try seeing as nothing else was working. Hermann had balked at the proposition for as long as he could with every excuse under the sun: an overly familiar face could do more harm than good, last time they’d been together it had ended in an attempt on his life, and people trained in this kind of thing were better suited to conduct psychological testing. His protests had merit, but the problem was that the experts were getting frustrated, already advising that it might be best to give up.

And Hermann wasn’t about to let that happen.

He nodded to the guards posted outside Newt’s cell door and they opened it, watching with curiosity as Hermann forced himself to cross the threshold. The door shut behind him with a loud finality. Newt looked up, and Hermann’s stomach may as well have flipped upside down.

‘Dr. Gottlieb,’ Newt hissed, testing his restraints with a half-hearted spasm of his arms and legs. ‘What a pleasure to see you again.’

Hermann pulled up a chair of his own - wooden, sturdy - and sat opposite him, glad to take the pressure off his bad leg. He lay his cane carefully across the floor and leaned forward, studying Newt’s face.

‘I’d like to talk to him, please,’ he intoned sternly.

‘You are talking to him,’ Newt’s reply came, but his voice carried that ghastly distortion which betrayed who was truly in control. ‘What’s left, anyway.’

Hermann leaned back and inhaled sharply, impatient. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I have nothing to say to you. I would like to speak to _him_.’

‘For what purpose? He serves no role to you now but that of a war criminal. Nothing can change what he’s done. What can be gained through mere words?’

‘Give me some time with him,’ Hermann insisted, trying to keep the frustration from his voice. ‘Please.’

Newt - Newt’s _body_ \- laughed, his head shaking back and forth. ‘Whatever you seek, you’re wasting your time. The man is a shell of himself. But by all means, see for yourself.’ With that, Newt’s eyes unfocused for a moment, staring into dead air as his expression neutralised. He started with a jerk and his eyes returned to life, fixing themselves back on Hermann.

‘H… Hermann?’ Newt stuttered, his voice back to its usual timbre.

‘Yes, Newton,’ Hermann replied, leaning forward, his guard still up.

‘Hermann…’ Newt said again, almost as though the word evoked a precious fondness within him. He smiled cautiously, his breath hitched in his throat, his face fell, and all of a sudden he was sobbing. ‘Hermann, oh _god_.’

Snatching the keys from his pocket, Hermann practically dove forward to undo the restraints around Newt’s wrists, working the locks frantically. Finally, his hands free, Newt put his palms on either side of his head and pressed hard, his fingers curling into his hair. He screwed up his face, as though in great pain.

‘I can’t get them out, I’m not strong enough, it’s all my fault and it’s because I’m not strong enough, I can’t…’ he babbled through tears, and the sight broke Hermann’s heart.

‘Newton. Newt,’ Hermann said softly, putting the keys back into his pocket, leaving Newt’s legs shackled just in case. ‘It’s alright, it’s alright, calm down.’

‘How can I calm down, after what I did, what I tried to do?’ Newt cried. ‘So many people dead… Man, how could I ever live with myself?’

‘I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.’

‘Or we won’t,’ Newt said ruefully, with a familiar air of self-pity that Hermann recognised from their days in the lab, when hours stretched too long and no amount of caffeine could connect science and the fantasies in his mind. ‘They’ll stay in my head, and you’ll have to kill me. Or maybe they’ll kill me themselves, now that I’m caged, useless to them. Maybe it’s for the best. I don’t see a way out, man.’

Hermann stood suddenly, full weight on his legs, cane be damned.

‘You will find a way,’ he said, voice raised to an intensity that was rare outside of the frenzy of war. ‘You will live with yourself because there’s no other option. I am not losing you to these… beasts! Not any more than I already have.’

Newt flinched away, an instinctive reaction, before slowly removing his hands from his head and hugging himself across the chest. ‘Thanks, dude.’

Hermann reached out, as though to put a hand on Newt’s shoulder, but hesitated and drew his hand away again. Physical contact… the last time had been when Newt’s hands were around his neck. The time before that was their celebratory hug after their elevator escape at Shao headquarters. And the time before that…

The night before Newt left. The private sector beckoned, money beckoned, and Hermann was blaming himself that he wasn’t enough to make the man he loved stay. Newt had been cold, quiet - more and more common in the days leading up to his departure - and it had torn Hermann apart. It had already started, he knew that now. This was the man who had called Hercules Hanson a fascist, of all people. He just wasn’t built for corporate life. In any case, though Newt may have welcomed the change in career path that Shao offered, he never would have left the way he did, with nothing but a sterile handshake and a promise to write.

Hermann had wanted to chase him, sprint after him, run as hard and as long as his bad leg would allow. He had wanted to catch him, grab him and… he didn’t even want to kiss him. He just wanted to embrace him, to let him know that what he felt was beyond words and science and paygrades. Even if it had made no difference, he wanted more than anything to make himself known at the very least. To unburden himself of feeling before the burden of loneliness was added to his load.

But instead he had stood by, offered his meek farewells, lingered a fraction too long on the handshake, and wished he had more of Newt’s spontaneity in him.

Instead he had let Newt leave, and let the monsters claim him.

‘I still don’t understand,’ Hermann said, sitting again. ‘How did this happen?’

Newt chuckled, but it was his own lilting laugh, not the harsh snickers of the Precursors. ’Those nightmares you mentioned?’ he said with a sad smile. ‘Yeah. I was having them too. They just wouldn’t let up, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I thought that maybe if I drifted with them again, I might… I might find a way to stop it, you know?’

‘Newton…’

‘But I wasn’t going to ask you to do it with me. Not again; I couldn’t put you through it. Not since I was sure you were having the nightmares too.’

‘So you drifted alone,’ Hermann surmised.

‘So I drifted alone,’ Newt echoed slowly, his voice thick with regret. ‘And then I did it again. And again, and again, and I don’t know when I stopped doing it and they started _making_ me do it but…’

’Newton, it’s alright. It’s not your fault.’

‘Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be so sure.’

‘You didn’t ask for this.’

‘I should have been able to stop them, right?’ Newt said, his voice trembling. ‘If I hadn’t let them get so far into my head…’

‘You didn’t know.’

‘I should have. But instead I opened my mind and invited them in. They poked around up there, exploited all of my insecurities - and I gotta tell you, there are a lot of those. They started talking, started making sense… By the the time I heard words coming out of my mouth that weren’t mine, saw my hands typing commands that I barely understood, it was too late. And now people are dead.’

‘I don’t care about any of that,’ Hermann said, his voice taking the same tone as it used to in the lab back in the Hong Kong Shatterdome. ‘I’m not interested in blame. I’m interested in how to fix this.’

Words surged through Newt’s head, a stream of consciousness that was not his own but was as familiar as anything else in his mind. When had the voices started? When had they taken residence? When had he accepted they weren’t going away?

_not strong enough not strong enough **you didn’t stand a chance and neither will he** not strong enough not strong enough_

‘Hermann,’ Newt croaked, shaking his head to the side as though trying to let the intrusive thoughts drain out of his ears. ‘Hermann… I’m so sorry.’

Before Hermann could ask what the apology was for, a dark look crossed Newt’s face and his whole body twitched. He lunged for the other man, arms outstretched, but the shackles on his legs jerked him backwards again and he hit his head, hard, on the headrest of the chair. Herman winced.

_not strong enough not strong enough **he never liked you he always doubted you he doesn’t care** not strong enough not strong enough_

‘Why would you care about what happens to me?’ Newt asked. His voice was small and shaky, but not totally his own. ‘You’re here for information, to solve a puzzle. This isn’t about saving me.’

Hermann sat back in his chair, debating whether to lock Newt’s arms up again. ‘You’ll never give me information,’ Hermann said coldly. ’There’s nothing I could do, no torture I could inflict, that would compel you to say a word you don’t want to. You creatures… you have no stake in what happens to your host, not anymore. There’s nothing I could do to him that would make you comply. Why would I put him through that?’ The final sentence came out alarmed, appalled, as though he had only considered the true futility of torturing Newt as he was speaking the words.

‘You wouldn’t,’ Newt said, and his voice had that jagged, mocking edge to it again. ‘Not you. We’ve seen you in the drift, Doctor. We have full access to his mind. Things get left behind in the drift, and you left something when you drifted with him. It’s interesting.’

Hermann felt his stomach plummet past his knees, the colour draining from his face.

‘We’re curious, Doctor,’ Newt - _not_ Newt - continued. ‘What was your rationale for keeping it from him? A fear of rejection? Surely there had to be a reason. He felt it in the drift. He always wondered why you never said anything. He eventually figured that maybe he’d imagined it. Who could ever love him, after all?’

Newt screwed up his face in anguish, letting out an animalistic scream of mental pain. A scarlet droplet of blood crept out from inside his nostril. He was at war within himself again. Hermann remembered begging Newt to fight them in the Shao control room, remembered the terrifying calmness and certainty in Newt’s voice when he simply replied that there was no point, he wasn’t strong enough. He was trying now.

He was trying, and he needed help.

Hermann leaned forward in a quick movement, reaching out and grabbing Newt’s hands, intwining their fingers and grasping tightly. The gesture was the most intimate they’d ever shared.

‘I could,’ he breathed, looking into Newt’s eyes. ‘I could love him. I _do_ love him. Newton, do you hear me? I… I love you, even when you’re stubborn. When you’re bold and you’re daring and you’re brave. _Especially_ when you’re brave. And I need you to be brave right now.’

Another shriek of pain rang out as the Precursors struggled to rip Newt’s hands away from Hermann’s hold. Hermann sat patiently, keeping eye contact as best he could and pressing their palms together as hard as his muscles would allow.

’Newton. Newt!’ he said, his voice rising above his companion’s shouts. ‘I know you can fight this!’

_not strong enough not strong enough **he’s lying to you why would you believe him** not strong enough not strong enough_

‘I know it feels like it’s impossible, but if anyone can break free of them it’s you, my friend.’

_not strong enough not strong enough **you haven’t been able to fight us all these years nothing has changed** not strong enough not strong enough_

‘Even if it takes you to breaking point, I need you to try, Newt! Push back! You’re strong!’

_not strong enough not strong enough **not strong enough** not strong enough not strong enough_

‘Please, Newton,’ Hermann’s voice fell from a yell to a cracked whisper in an instant. He stroked both thumbs delicately over the knuckles of Newt’s index fingers, yearning for signs of reciprocation. ‘Please. Free yourself and come back to me.’

_not strong enough not str— come back to come back to me back to me **no** come back to me **you can’t fight us** come back to me **you’re not strong enough** come back to me **you’re weak** i’m strong enough to come back to you_

Newt’s screams reached a fevered crescendo before the sound died in his throat with a strangled gurgle. He fell back against the chair, inhaling violently, eyes squeezed shut. Hermann kept their hands together and waited for Newt to open his eyes.

Newt was still.

’Newton?’ he asked after a few moments, anxious and desperate. ‘Can you hear me?’

‘Yeah,’ Newt replied, eyes still closed, body still tense, tears streaming down his cheeks. ‘Don’t worry Hermann, I hear you.’

‘Are… are you alright?’ Hermann asked hesitantly. His grip on Newt’s hands remained tight.

Newt opened his eyes. They drilled into Hermann with that familiar roguish ferocity that had been missing for years. ’I think so,’ he replied, his voice shaky but back to normal. ‘For now, at least.’

Hermann simply sat and looked at him for a few seconds, letting relief wash over him, before releasing his grasp on Newt’s hands and sliding them up his arms, standing and leaning to reach far enough to embrace him. He buried his face in Newt’s shirt, breathing him in. His hands now freed, Newt lifted his arms to reciprocate the hug, arms tight around him.

The two men stayed like that for a moment, safe in each other’s arms, both trembling.

Hermann eventually sat back and released Newt. A little embarrassed now that the moment had passed, he cleared his throat. ‘So, uh… How do you feel?’

Newt shrugged. ‘Like pure shit. I’m sure it’ll get better.’ He thought for a moment, running his hand through his hair. ‘I _hope_ it’ll get better. But I don’t think they’re gone. Not for good. After this long I don’t think they’d go just like that. They haven’t left me, they’ll be back. But for now…’

‘For now?’ Hermann prompted after Newt trailed off and stared vacantly at the floor, deep in thought.

‘For now I’d like to enjoy what time I have,’ Newt said eventually. ‘For as long as they will let me. I think… I think it’s finally time for _us_.’

Hermann blinked back his shock. ’S-sorry?’ he stammered. ‘What?’

Newt chuckled. ‘I saw it in the drift. I saw it when I left to work for Shao, when I was chained up in my own head. I saw it when they made me put my hands around your neck. And I see it now. Hermann, you love me.’

‘I… Newt, I…’ Hermann said, holding out his hands and curling his fingers into anxious fists, finding with frustration that he was unable to express himself.

‘I don’t know why you didn’t feel _me_ feel it,’ Newt said quietly, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. ‘In the drift, I mean. I guess I’d drifted before, I knew how it worked. But the second we connected… Hermann, dude, it was all I could feel. Your big, fat crush on me. Took all I had to focus on the Kaiju, on the matter at hand. It was _blinding_.’

‘Newton…’

‘Would you let me finish? I know you love to interrupt me but listen, just _listen_. We went and we saved the world, you and I. And I waited for you to say something because I wasn’t sure how I felt yet. And then little by little, my mind slipped away from me, and by the time I finally knew what I wanted, the Precursors made damn sure that I got as far away from you as possible. They knew that it’d be a threat to keep us together. I mean, look how much damage we did to them today by just sitting here and talking. And I am so, so sorry I couldn’t fight them sooner - for myself, for everyone who suffered because of it… and for _you_.’

‘Oh,’ Hermann responded simply, his mind in overdrive trying to put everything in place to confirm what he thought he was hearing.

Newt laughed again. Hermann furrowed his brow a little, ready to snap at Newt that it wasn’t funny, but the very sound reminded him of their past and his anger melted away like it had never been there at all. He sat for a moment, looking at the other man, and realised he had no idea what to do next.

‘Oh for _god’s sake_ Hermann,’ Newt said quickly, reaching out and grabbing either side of his face, pulling him in for a kiss.

It was urgent, messy, almost panicked. Hermann didn’t need to be in the drift to know what was in Newt’s mind: the Precursors could come back at any time, and he had to make the most of every moment. The fear of a ticking clock spurred Hermann on and he kissed back almost immediately despite his shock, marvelling at the fact that after all his years of extremely unscientific daydreaming, he had never once considered the variable that Newt might be the one to initiate a kiss.

‘Why the fuck did I fall for you, huh?’ Newt said softly, as he pulled away. ‘When it’s not numbers, you can never make a goddamn decision.’

‘Do you honestly think I understand my infatuation with you, then?’ Hermann shot back, fondness in his voice. ‘Trust me, Newton, rockstars aren’t typically my type.’

Newt grinned that roguish grin and rolled up his sleeves the way he used to do back in the lab, exposing his tattoos. Hermann had always loved those illustrations, though he’d never said it. Newt’s childlike fascination with the beasts defied his understanding, but for the man to wear his interests so openly and literally on his sleeve… that took dedication. His face fell a little as he realised that the Precursors had likely targeted Newt because of this fascination - who would think to question the Kaiju groupie over a heightened interest in the monsters already immortalised on his body? Who would think to look out for warning signs that the Kaiju groupie was sliding downhill fast, into a tarpit not of his own making? Who would look out for the Kaiju groupie at all? Who but Hermann?

Kaiju groupie… An insult turned endearment turned living hell. The phrase made Hermann shudder a little. If he had known Newt well enough to bestow such a nickname, he should have known when to worry.

‘Hermann,’ Newt said, looking at his friend’s deepening frown. ‘Dude. There was no way you could have known. Not really. When I left, I barely knew. It was slow. Agonisingly slow.’

‘What was it like when it started?’ Hermann asked quietly, despite himself, leaning forward.

Newt bit his lip, looking down at his tattoos. He took a deep breath, the sight of them grounding him. The Precursors preferred to hide them as often as possible.

‘Like I was on autopilot. I was tired, so tired all the time… I thought it was just work. But when I stopped wanting to do things, or trying to do things, they’d get done. I’d watch myself do them, like I was watching a stranger. It was kind of cool, like a stupid superpower or something. But even I’m not that naive. Eventually I saw that it wasn’t right, it started to scare me. But when I’d go to say something - beg for a psych assessment, ask you for your advice - it was like my own psyche would get slammed against the back of my skull, held there until the urge passed. By the time I knew what was happening… there was nothing I could do. They’d hold me there, trapped, and all I’d be able to do is watch. Watch while they had me say things that made me sound like even more of an asshole than I already am, watch while they made me leave the Shatterdome, watch while they wrote lines of code that I barely understood until way too late… I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry…’

More tears escaped Newt’s eyes and Hermann reached out and put his hands on Newt’s arms to still him. Newt’s mania was a good sign, a sign that he was himself again, but Hermann was wary of getting him too worked up.

‘It’s okay,’ Hermann intoned as gently as he could. ‘Newton. We’re going to figure this out.’

‘You gonna keep me in here in the meantime? Locked in the chair?’

Hermann’s eyes darted over to the mirrored wall, to where he thought Jake might be standing on the other side. He didn’t need to ask to know the answer.

‘I believe so.’

‘Good.’

Hermann smirked and looked back at Newt. ‘Ever the optimist.’

‘I could hurt someone otherwise. You’ve seen it. But if I could make one request…’

‘Yes?’

Newt looked over at the mirror this time, before turning back to Hermann and flashing a lopsided grin. ‘Can I get some music in here? I think… I think it drives them nuts.’ He tapped a finger against his head. ’That was one of the first things they had me give up. And anyway, I’m bored shitless in here.’

Hermann chuckled. ‘I’ll see what I can do. I, uh… I kept all the discs of your old Shatterdome mixes,’ he confessed, drawing his hands back down Newt’s arms and resting them on his own knees. ‘I could bring those.’

‘No _way_ , that would be awesome! Perfect.’ Newt’s smile held for a moment before slipping a little. ‘Y-you really kept them? My mixes?’

Hermann nodded, his cheeks reddening slightly. ‘It’s silly but when you left… It helped to have them. Made me feel like sometimes… you were still around, distracting me from my equations.’

‘Who’d have thought you miss me so much, huh?’

‘Indeed. Any particular mixes you want me to bring?’

‘The British rock mix, please. Oasis, Kaiser Chiefs, Arctic Monkeys—’

‘I’m familiar,’ Hermann interrupted, rolling his eyes. ‘I despise that one.’

‘You despise them all.’

‘But that one _especially_.’

‘That’s only because I put New Order on repeat so often. If you’d only let yourself _enjoy_ it and listen to it you might have hated it a little less.’

Hermann looked at him with tired eyes for a moment, the beginning of a disbelieving smile curving his lips upwards. When he opened his mouth, his voice was low and gravelly, shaky but certain. ‘ _How does it feel… to treat me like you do…_ ’

‘ _When you’ve laid your hands upon me and told me who you are_ ,’ Newt murmured, completing the lyric. ‘Dude. I can’t even believe you’re singing Blue Monday right now.’ He looked at the one-way mirror again and raised his voice, electric with excitement. ‘You’re hearing this, right? Hermann Gottlieb is singing eighties synth pop!’

‘I finally got that song out of my head 4 years ago,’ Hermann said, shaking his head. ‘The second you came back, it did too.’

Newt gritted his teeth suddenly, clutching at his head and wincing. Hermann watched wordlessly until the pain passed and Newt looked back up at him, eyes more sunken than ever.

‘How long do we have?’ Hermann asked, sitting back in his chair.

‘Not long,’ Newt choked out. ‘Hermann… Hermann, what if I can’t come back again? What if they find a new way to contain me?’

Hermann stood, lifting his cane off the floor. He made his way to the right of Newt’s chair, placing his free hand on Newt’s shoulder.

’Contain you? Is this the same man who went toe-to-toe with Hannibal Chau? You’re Doctor Newton Geiszler. Who could ever contain you?’

‘Yeah, but what if they do?’

‘Then I’ll bring you back, like I did today,’ Hermann reassured him quietly, in that methodical, precise voice he usually reserved for boasting about equations he’d triple-checked and proven without a doubt. ‘And I’ll keep bringing you back until they’re gone for good.’

‘Like you did today?’

‘Yes,’ Hermann

‘Okay, well, just remember, dude - that stroking thing you did with your hands? Genius. Worked a treat.’

‘It did?’

‘Yeah. And it sent the Precursors packing too.’

Hermann lifted his hand and gave Newt a playful swat across the ear, trying to mask his grin. ‘Newton, this is serious.’

Newt looked up at him. ‘Yeah, I know,’ he replied, but his smile faltered after a moment, his eye twitching. ‘I’m just… j-just—‘

_not strong enough not strong enough **you can’t honestly believe you’ll ever be free of us** not strong enough not strong enough_

‘Are you alright?’ Hermann asked, concerned.

Newt shrugged his hand away. ‘Lock me back up, Hermann,’ he rasped, searing pain flashing through his head. ‘ _Now_.’

Hermann did as he was asked, grimacing as he fumbled the keys from his pockets and restrained Newt’s arms again. They had been lucky to get as much time as they had, he knew that, but minutes weren’t enough when what he wanted was years, decades.

‘Thank you, Doctor Gottlieb,’ Newt said as Hermann finished and stood back, the hard edge of the Precursors once again lacing his words. ‘Did you find what you wanted to find? Next time you’re going to need more than hand holding and lyrics. We were feeling charitable today.’

‘I don’t believe you. He’s in there, I’ll keep bringing him back until you give up.’

Hermann turned around and began to take his leave, exhausted and done for the day. He would fight for Newt again tomorrow.

‘ _Tell me how does it feel when your heart grows cold?_ ’ 

Hermann stopped. The Precursors may have commandeered Newt’s voice, but their melody came out clipped, stilted, with none of Newt’s trademark passion.

‘I’m sure I wouldn’t know,’ Hermann said over his shoulder. ‘Worry not, Newton. I’ll bring the mix by the end of the week. If New Order doesn’t work, I’m sure The Cure will. Friday’s coming, after all.’

A strangled laugh escaped Newt, his eyes alight with amusement but his mouth turned down in displeasure. He wasn’t pushing hard enough to break free completely, but enough to give Hermann the response that he wanted, that he _needed_ …

‘ _I don’t care if Monday’s blue_ …’

‘ _Tuesday’s grey and Wednesday too_ …’

‘ _Thursday I don’t care about you_ …’ Newt choked out, before the Precursors tightened the reigns and slammed his head back against the chair. Newt’s face dulled, and he was still again, staring at Hermann with narrowed eyes. The look was a threat; continue this, and who knew what else they’d do to him. Time to go.

Hermann let his gaze linger for a moment, then looked back ahead to the door and made his way to it, knocking twice with his cane. It opened and he stepped through without hesitation, waiting for the sound of it closing before allowing himself to exhale. He turned and leaned his forehead against the cool metal of the door, closing his eyes and reminding himself that whatever else happened, today was a win. He allowed himself the softest smile before straightening up, already mentally preparing his report to Pentecost. Nodding stiffly to the guards, he headed away from the cell and around the corridor, ready to fight for Newt’s recovery.

Only when he had turned the corner and left earshot of the guards did he allow himself to finish the lyric, his voice as tuneless as ever but his heart light in his chest.

‘ _It’s Friday I’m in love_.’

**Author's Note:**

> Songs referenced in the fic are _Blue Monday_ by New Order and _Friday I'm In Love_ by The Cure. The temptation to make a whole Spotify playlist to serve as Newt's Shatterdome mix was hard to resist, let me tell you.
> 
> Let me know if you enjoyed the fic! Don't usually write for Pacific Rim (even though I love it so goddamn much) so this is a bit of a departure for me.


End file.
